


Very Important Question Time

by Yubsie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 16:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5298284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yubsie/pseuds/Yubsie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was never a great secret that Leia was adopted</p>
            </blockquote>





	Very Important Question Time

When the Senate wasn't in session, Leia's bedtime was well known to be sacred. It was only to be interrupted if lives were in immediate danger. Bail got so little time with his daughter as it was, he would not have this disturbed for trivialities.

Breha had already braided their little girl's hair by the time he arrived for story time. This was a ritual they'd established almost from the very start. They were Alderaanian. Sharing these stories with their children was simply what they did.

“Daddy?” Except, it would seem, it was going to be Very Important Question time before story time. There was never any telling what that would lead to. Sometimes it was why there were songs they weren't supposed to play. Sometimes it was why sunsets were different colours on different nights.

“Yes, Lelila?”

“What does 'adopted' mean?”

That was, indeed, a Very Important Question. But one he'd always known he would have to answer. They'd made no secret of the fact that Leia was adopted. Even if they'd wanted to, it would have been impossible. The fact that Breha had been unable to bear children was a matter of public record, so better she always hear it at home than to catch it second hand Force knew where.

“It means that you decide to make someone part of your family. Like when you brought home Kenobi.” A little pittin, a stray. His sisters were appalled that he wasn't pedigreed, of course. But Leia loved that creature and that was what mattered. He wasn't going anywhere. He'd worried about the name, but of course she wouldn't have picked it if he wasn't telling those stories.

“You found me in an alley?”

Bail sat down on the edge of the bed and let Leia snuggle up next to him. “Not exactly. There were a lot of children who lost their parents in the war. Mommy and I knew we could give one of them a family again.”

Leia considered that for a moment. He was sure there would be a follow up question. Very Important Question time never actually meant _one_ question. “If there were lots of kids... why me?”

And this is where it was going to be tricky. He wanted to tell her about Padme. How important she was to him. What an amazing woman she was. That she had a brother too, that he would gladly have taken them both if separating them hadn't been safer. But he couldn't. He didn't dare. That would only put Leia at risk from forces too terrible to comprehend. He couldn't stray from the official story. A war orphan. There were, as he told her, plenty of those. And it wasn't _entirely_ untrue. “I was there when you were born. When your first mommy died. I just looked at you and _knew_.”

Leia had a distant look in her eyes. The sort of look he sometimes saw on Jedi. “The beautiful lady.”

“What?” Surely she couldn't.

“I remember a beautiful lady. She was really sad. Was that my first mommy?”

That shouldn't be possible. She'd been a newborn. Mere minutes old when Padme died. How could she possibly remember her? The Force, perhaps? It worked in mysterious ways. And there was no one left that he could ask. No one he dared contact, anyway. “She was sad because she knew she wasn't going to be able to take care of you. She loved you just as much as Mommy and I do.”

“Was she nice? She felt nice.” Then it was a Force thing. Leia couldn't possibly realize that. But he'd known for a long time that she was Force sensitive. And had gone to great lengths to make sure no one _else_ noticed. Perhaps it was just as well most people hadn't known the Jedi as he did.

“She was very nice.” So many things he'd wished he could tell her. The way she never stopped fighting for peace, for democracy. The way she always tried to protect her people and that as the war dragged on, they had _all_ become her people. But the official story was that she was someone he happened to meet during his relief work. So very nice would have to do. “She would be very proud of you.”

“I wish I could have seen her smile.”

“Me too.” He'd gained the most wonderful daughter any parent could ever dream of. But at such a cost. A dear friend never had the chance to know that same wonderful daughter. Nothing was ever fair.

“Do you know what kind of stories she would read?”

He always reads her stories from many different planets. He would have done it anyway, so she would grow up understanding the people from those worlds. But it also meant he could read her Naboo fairy tales without them standing out too much. Because he does know what sort of stories her birth mother would have read her. And he wants her to still hear them. So he pulls up a story of a brave young queen who walked the length of her country to bring her people food in a famine. “I think she would have liked this one.” And at least that much was true.


End file.
